knew the
properties and divine significations of such things.

The house itself was of wattles, plastered with mud from the brook, and
thatched with straw. There was a door of wood that he leaned against the
opening on this side when he prayed, but not when he slept, and a little
square window high up upon the other side that looked into the green
wood. It is of that same door that saint Giles' new altar was made, for
the house fell down after his going, and the wind blew about the mud and
the sticks, and the pilgrims have now carried all away. I took the door
myself, when I came back and had seen him go through the heavenly door
to our Lord.

The house within was a circle, three strides across, with a domed roof
like a bee-hive as high as a man at the sides and half as high again in
the centre. On the left lay his straw for a bed, and above it on the
wall the little square of linen that he took afterwards with him to
London, worked with the five precious wounds of our Saviour. On the
right hand side was a wooden stool where he sat sometimes to pray and on
the wall against it a little press that held some bottles within, and in
another shelf some holy relics that are now in the church, and in
another his six books; and above, upon the top, a little cross with our
Lord upon it, very rude; for he said that the eyes of the soul should
not be hindered by the eyes of the body, and that our Lord showed
Himself often to him more clearly and truly than a craftsman could make
Him. Above the window was a little figure of the Mother of God, set
there, he told me, above the sight of the green wood, because she was
the mother of all living, and had restored what Eve had spoiled.

I cannot tell you, my children, of the peace of this place. The little
house, and indeed the whole circle of the meadow set about with trees,
was always to me as a mansion in paradise. There were no sounds here but
the song of the birds and the running of the water and the wind in the
trees; and no sight of any other world but this, except in winter when
the hill over against the hut showed itself through the branches not
three hundred paces away. On all other sides the woods rose to the sky.
I think that the beasts knew the peace of the place. I have seen often a
stag unafraid watching Master Richard as he dug or walked on his path;
the robins would follow him, and the little furry creatures sit round
him with ears on end. And he told me, too, that never